Nope, hurricanes are just not enough for Floridians to handle. Now we have to worry about the ground shaking too. Sheesh!
Last year’s strong hurricane season may have contributed to a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, a University of Florida professor says.
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Hurricane Katrina moved large volumes of muddy sediments from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, Russo said, and that presents two possible recipes for earthquakes. Large amounts of sediment could have piled up in layers over time and fractured the earth beneath under massive weight, he said. Another possibility is that the sediment on the ocean floor was displaced, perhaps by hurricanes, and moved into an area that couldn’t support that weight and fissured.
Sunday’s earthquake was the largest and most widely felt of more than a dozen earthquakes recorded in the Gulf in the past 30 years, according to scientists interviewed by The Associated Press.
I work for a sheriff’s office in central Florida, and I have access to 911 call recordings. I listened to several of the calls that came in about the earthquake, and every single person, including the 911 operators, were incredulous. No one knew what to make of it all. Funny and yet scary at the same time.
Here’s a longer version of the story with much more interesting detail, even if the lead paragraph is a groaner. 😉 This story outlines more than just the hurricane theory. There is no end to all the cool science stuff to be studied in the world!
